Viraam - an alternative approach to heavy vehicle waste management

The journey began with a visit to Behrampur, Garage no.3 in Ahmedabad. This is where the Gujarat Government heavy vehicles are auctioned and brought in for dismantling and then the individual parts are distributed among the shopkeepers who deal in those particular body parts.


The trip revealed that nothing goes waste over here, right from a tiny screw to the engine, tank and chassis. There's an entire network to use, reuse or recycle the body parts. The only possible direction that we could think of was somehow not to recycle the products leading to down scaling its strength but to reuse them in an innovative way.


After a lot of brainstorming and ideas the final concept that was agreed upon was a highway inn, built using truck scrap. For ex: rooms were made out of truck bodies, tables out of the extra timber, seating arrangements using tyres and driver's seats, columns using chassis structure.


Also, this involved giving the dry weather of Ahmedabad a thought while making the architectural structures. So, simple ideas like mud wall backing for the South facing walls to keep the metal body structures cool, bamboo roofs, planned landscapes and grey water harvesting were incorporated into the design.
The name Viraam comes from Hindi language meaning 'a pause'. Consider it a pause in your journey or 'a pause and think' of how things we ignore can be utilized in a different way. Overall, it was a two week fun experience which involved thinking, architecture, branding and 3D modelling.

Fig. 1 Behrampur scrap yard
Fig. 2 Building the brand

Fig. 3: View of the highway inn

Fig. 4 : View of the rooms
Fig.5 : Sample structure